"It will be especially valuable in high-acuity areas where time-sensitive treatment decisions are critical, like in the ICU and Emergency Department, and that’s why those areas are the initial target markets. There are 6,000 EDs and 10,000 ICUs in the US alone, so we believe there is a significant market opportunity," chairman & CEO Yulun Wang told MassDevice.com in an email.

"Extending independent living at home will ultimately turn out to be the killer app for robots," Angle said at an MIT Enterprise Forum in April. "It allows doctors and nurse to be able to afford house calls again. What that means is that you can get treated for 80% of the things you might need to go to a hospitals for simply by having a robot in your home. If the diagnosis says you need something unique, well then you go to the hospital and you get the care with the big machines that aren’t transportable. I think this is really within our grasp within our lifetime."

Wang said acute care is poised for a reckoning as the healthcare system moves from a fee-for-service business model to a system driven by accountable care and outcome-based models.

"We see platforms like the RP-VITA bridging the era between healthcare as we have come to know it (pay-for-service) and healthcare as we are likely to see it evolve over the next 10 years," he wrote. "Looking forward over the coming 10 years, acute care medicine will be forced to evolve to enable better and more coordinated care all at lower costs."

Platforms such as the RP-VITA can help with that transition by lowering costs and improving efficiency in the ER and ICU unit, Wang said.

At DeviceTalks Boston, Tyler Shultz will give attendees an inside look at Theranos and how he was able to sound the alarm after he realized the company was falling apart. Shultz will take attendees behind the story that everyone is talking about: the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her diagnostic company, Theranos.